Podcast Highlights

Piano Inspires Podcast: Scott McBride Smith

Written By Scott McBride Smith, Craig Sale

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Scott McBride Smith, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Craig Sale. Want to learn more about Smith? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Smith on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Scott McBride Smith

Craig Sale: What impact do you see music having on our world now?

Scott McBride Smith: Yeah, that’s a good one, isn’t it? Well, there’s something magical about the combinations of sounds, isn’t it? There’s something special about being around beauty that just elevates your life. The worst piano student, at least, is there to experience beauty. You’re not around violence, you’re not around suffering. You and I, because we’re professionals, spend our lives around people that actually want to do it. That’s really kind of a gift. 

So why doesn’t the rest of the world see that? I don’t know. That’s a good question. Do you have an answer? I just don’t know why they don’t value it. It seems so valuable to me. So you know, as a department chair at KU, I have to understand the decisions these days and universities are made for financial reasons.

CS: Right.

SMS: Again, I’m not criticizing because if I were provost of the University, I would have to too because “who’s going to pay?” So you have to make financial decisions. But I sometimes wonder, don’t they see how good this is for the school, and how much the marching band means? I wouldn’t say they don’t see it, but I don’t think it says value to some other things with higher dollar sign numbers on it.

CS: That’s how they’re trained to look at it, is the dollar sign rather than the impact on those kids’ lives.

SMS: So I have to be a big boy and understand that and make sure that I’m doing my best to justify what we do on [a] financial basis, which isn’t really my belief as [to] what the importance of it is. But anyway, since that’s the way the world works, I have to live in the world the way it is, not the way I wish it were.

CS: Also, I think [on] music in the world, I find it so accessible for people to get music and experience it passively. 

SMS: Yeah. That’s right, and that’s a good thing and a bad thing. There’s nobody in the whole world that doesn’t have music in their life in some way. But maybe it’s a little too easy to just push a button. We’ve lost that belief in participation. We expect it to be delivered to us. 

CS: Active music-making is what we might be concerned about, I think. Do you think music impacts the future of our world? 

SMS: Yes. I’m not sure we’re going to win, though. [Laugh]

CS: [Laugh] But it could. Yeah, it could shape it.

SMS: Anyway, nobody’s asking a pair of piano teachers what we’re doing. We just got to keep doing what we can do. No one’s asking [for] our opinion.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Scott McBride Smith on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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What Do You Do To Make the Recital a Happy and Successful Experience?
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Penelope Roskell

Written By Penelope Roskell, Sara Ernst

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Penelope Roskell, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Sara Ernst. Want to learn more about Roskell? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Roskell on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Penelope Roskell

Sara Ernst: I’ve heard you talk about—I think the phrase you used was “duty of care.” And that comes into my mind hearing you speak about this.

Penelope Roskell: Yeah. I feel as teachers, what I’ve been talking about really already, we have a responsibility to look after our students physically and also to nurture them as artists now—to instill a love of music, [a] love of art, and the higher things in life. Really, the things that we really live for, as musicians.

We can’t always get that right, and there are things that every teacher will do wrong and regret and look back and think, “Oops, I really got it wrong with that in that lesson” or whatever. But I think if that’s what we set ourselves as our challenge, then we’ll get somewhere along that. Especially if you’re a young teacher, you’re not going to get everything right. And you know, maybe a student will be practicing in a very unwise way, and they might hurt their hand. Maybe it’s something you couldn’t prevent. You just didn’t have the knowledge. You didn’t have the experience. 

So in that case, you ask somebody who does have the experience for the extra support, or you find it out online, or wherever you go. And then you come back, and you will probably have learned from that experience, and you’re an even better teacher in the future from it. So we learn from our mistakes, don’t we? 

SE: We do, and it’s one of those things that I’m so grateful we have such a community in our field of people and experts and other teachers. 

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Penelope Roskell on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Techniques for Beginning Pianists
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Jess Johnson

Written By Jessica Johnson, Andrea Mcalister

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Jess Johnson, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Andrea McAlister. Want to learn more about Johnson? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Johnson on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Jessica Johnson.

Andrea McAlister: You mentioned this word “trust” a lot. I often share with my students that trust is really about having something that is so precious to you that you know you can share with another person, and everything will be fine. You’re making yourself vulnerable by taking that thing that is very precious and saying, “I trust you with this,” versus the opposite of, “I cannot share my vulnerabilities with you.” Right? 

And you are doing such amazing work with your students, sharing those vulnerabilities and saying, “You can trust me.” But what I love even more about what you’re saying is you are also showing them that they can trust themselves. 

Jess Johnson: That’s right.

AM: And with these reflective activities that you are helping them through. I think unless you are taught how to do that, then that is a missing component of that process of trust.

JJ: Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more. I know in my own journey, as somebody who has had generalized anxiety, that’s been something that, you know, those of us with trait anxiety are more likely to have performance anxiety. The data is clear, and it makes perfect, intuitive sense as well. Being afraid to put myself out there—I think of the things I didn’t do because I didn’t want to take the risk, but I also think of the things I did do even though they were really hard because [they] aligned with my values. 

When I went through a medical crisis about ten years ago, I started a mindfulness class. I learned stillness and sitting with my anxiety and holding it rather than resisting avoiding [it]. It transformed everything in my life, particularly my teaching, my performance, because then I was able to say, instead of, “Oh, it’s terrible. I can’t do this,” I would frame the conversation around principles of self-compassion: “This feels bad. I’m not happy.” Then with mindful curiosity: “What is it exactly? Oh, I don’t like the pacing in this transition,” or “I need to find a different fingering or a different gesture, a different way to group that so that it makes more sense.” And then you could strategize and find a way forward and meet yourself where you are. You’re your own teacher, right? And then that transformed my teaching because of helping them see where they are and what do I need, rather than the personal judgment [of] perfectionism. It is, “how can I solve this? What kinds of sounds can I make?” And then the joy and the playfulness comes through. I remember the second grader, you know the thing that I was so excited about. 

I always say, when I have those delightful moments with a student, I call them “moments of joy,” “cultivating joy,” where you catch somebody in the act and you’re connecting, and something’s happening. I’ll often point it out to them, “This is a moment of joy for me.” I’m really happy to be here right now, and modeling that and waking them up and drawing attention, and they’re like, “Oh yeah!” Because we’re so busy and the world is pushing us to be busy, [I appreciate] having some stillness where we’re just right here. I do things like body scans before the lessons, before my own practice, before my own work, things that help me declare it a sacred space that we’re coming together to connect, share, and trust each other, whether it’s alone or with a partner, whether rehearsal. It’s a great thing I’ve learned, and I’m so grateful that my path went in that direction and that I was able to explore that because it’s really revolutionized where I am and how I feel about being a professional musician and teacher.

AM: Yes, I so appreciate how you’re talking about mindfulness and meeting yourself, but meeting yourself with curiosity instead of judgment. And that is such a difficult thing for humans to do, because we are so naturally drawn to judgment first instead of curiosity. And maybe there are just people out there who just naturally do this. And I would love to be one of those people, but it’s something that—

JJ: Then you wouldn’t be who you are, which is your superpower.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Jess Johnson on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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How an Alternatively Sized Keyboard Transformed my Artistry and Life as a Musician and Teacher
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Anton Nel

Written By Artina McCain, Anton Nel

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Anton Nel, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Artina McCain. Want to learn more about Nel? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Chee on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Anton Nel

Artina McCain: What inspired you to make the switch from piano to fortepiano or harpsichord? I happen to know you have these at your house too.

Anton Nel: My place looks like a museum now. The first wonderful teacher I had when I lived on the farm, the man who started me really, he was—again, you know, you think back of these days and how wonderful these people were. I had never seen a harpsichord before or anything, but he had records of this instrument that this music was written for, and so he made cassette tapes of his records for me of the Bach harpsichord concertos and all this stuff. I was mesmerized by the sound of it, and just loved it.

Then I played on one of my earliest concerts. We went to Johannesburg. I was playing, I think, the Kabalevsky Third [Piano] Concerto on this program with other young people. You win these concerto competitions, right, and then you play in these concerts. The first piece on the concert was the Bach Concerto for Four Harpsichords. It’s the thing that’s like the Vivaldi Four Violin Concerto. Well, I had never seen a harpsichord before. I think I was maybe 13 or 14. My mother was beside herself. I had absolutely lost all interest in the piece that I was playing. I wanted to play on those harpsichords, and of course, and I caused such a consternation. And of course, everything was fine, you know, but then I subsequently got a small Italian single-manual instrument of my own. So I started to play when I was 15 or so, the harpsichord, and I played through school, and I also like the organ and so on.

The fortepiano—there’s a wonderful man in Austin whose name is Keith Womer, and he has a period instrument orchestra called La Follia. He had this idea that I would possibly take to playing the fortepiano. About ten years ago, he called me and offered me an opportunity to play a Mozart and a Haydn concerto with the orchestra. It was like a miracle that happened. I took this instrument and I absolutely loved it, and started to really learn it. And then suddenly, all of these things that I puzzled about for so many years—the articulations in Mozart, the dynamic markings, all this finicky stuff that on the modern piano is so tricky to negotiate—suddenly became second nature. So I really, really worked at it. Then, I brought my harpsichord playing back as well. So about a quarter of my engagements now I play these instruments, and it has opened my ears in ways I couldn’t even imagine. I always thought that I listened pretty well, but—and my students—this was a little bit before your time. I think my students now always know when I have a harpsichord or fortepiano concert coming up because I’m impossible. No slur is right, no articulation is right. I get all sort of OCD and persnickety and sort of fussy—I’m always a little difficult. So you talk of inspirations—that has made a big, big difference. It sort of added a new dimension to me as a musician, so that makes me happy. So, yes, playing that annually is always an adventure. I’ve learned so much new music too because of it.

AM: So do you now teach some of that to your students too? Do you have them over and they play it?

AN: I do sometimes. If I ever have a little bit more time in my schedule, I would like to teach a sort of a basic class. I’m not sure I would be qualified to actually teach anybody to play the instruments as a major. I don’t think my knowledge is quite—I’m not quite ready for it, but absolutely the basics I can. I think it’s important for pianists to know these things. Even if they don’t play them seriously, just to have the opportunity to try them, because it’s initially quite shocking. Still, when I go—I just had to play a fortepiano program the other day—you go to it, and for the first two or three hours on the instrument, if you’ve not played it for a while, you sound so bad. Oh, you sound so [bad] because you keep wanting to—and for those things, you have to let the instrument play you. You must not play it. You let it. It’ll show you, if you let it. But if you sort of take out your Rachmaninoff Third [Piano] Concerto chops, it’s not going to work.

AM: Definitely not.

AN: But, we all have tendencies, you know. So that’s awesome.

AM: Yeah, we don’t have enough opportunity to play period instruments as pianists. So that’s incredible that that’s a part of your engagements now, is to play those instruments.

AN: Yes, because, I mean, again, it’s something that becomes very specialized. The groups I play with are 100% authentic. I mean, last year I had this fabulous opportunity—I played the Beethoven Fourth [Piano] Concerto on an instrument from about 1809 with about a fifty piece all-original instrument orchestra. Even the clarinet[ist]s made their own instruments, so it’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live. I had to relearn the whole thing, of course, and the instruments still had knee pedals, just like my fortepiano at home, and also all his instructions about how to use the una corda and all this and in the slow movement. It was a transformative thing. I’ll never forget it.

AM: Wow.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Anton Nel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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An Interview with Anton Nel
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Jeremy Siskind

Written By Jeremy Siskind, Andrea Mcalister

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Jeremy Siskind, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Andrea McAlister. Want to learn more about Siskind? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Siskind on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Jeremy Siskind.

Andrea McAlister: I did want to ask you about the work that you’ve done in Lebanon. I don’t know if you’re continuing to do that work, but I know recently, you’ve done some work with students through a program there. Can you talk a little bit about the work you’ve done and the impact? 

Jeremy Siskind: Yeah, absolutely. There are a couple of different organizations, but principally there’s this organization called Jazz Education Abroad, and I’ve gotten to go to China, Thailand, Lebanon, Cyprus, Tunisia [to] teach jazz. And you know, jazz is, as Duke Ellington would put it, America’s classical music. Jazz is quintessentially American music, and so the mission is always to teach people about, hopefully, one of the best parts of American culture. We know that America, [to] different parts of the world, is not necessarily considered the greatest friend or the greatest peacemaker, and so to be able to go in and share our values through our music, right? Jazz is so intertwined with American values, right? Jazz is democratic. Everybody in the band gets to contribute, right? Jazz is liberated. You don’t have to stay on this score. You get to express yourself, right? Jazz is the free speech of music. 

So as we go around and, of course, we’re not proselytizing, but we do try to show how beautiful the music is, of course, and how beautiful these values can be. And, we always learn as much as we teach when we go to these places, because we see how people live. We see how enthusiastic they are about all kinds of music. We see how enthusiastic they are about being creative, about how they’re living their life, about how they’re supporting, you know, their communities, how they’re contributing to their communities through music. And it’s always really moving.

Particularly, I’ll share something about our program in Cyprus. So Cyprus is a small island in the Mediterranean. I’m going to get the history wrong, so I’m not going to say anything, any exact dates. But at a certain point it was Greek-owned, and then there was a Turkish–some would say invasion, some would say liberation. I’m going to leave that to–

AM: Leave that to history. 

JS: But the island basically was split in a two, and it has been for many years. And the capital, I think, is the last split capital, the last divided capital, [since] the Berlin Wall fell. As you could imagine, politically, it’s a little bit tense, and people on the Turkish side, you know, don’t necessarily have the warmest feelings [towards] people on the Greek side, and etc. And the expressed purpose of the camp in Cyprus is that we are putting students from both sides into the same ensembles and allowing them to find common ground through music. And it’s just so beautiful to see, because, you know, there can be tensions, but it’s hard to dislike somebody who you’re getting to make amazing music with, who you’re like working together with to form a musical goal. We’ve seen these friendships form, we’ve seen people’s walls come down, and that’s just been like a really phenomenal experience. You know, I’m just trying to teach them how to play jazz, but there’s all this other stuff happening, administratively, behind the scenes, to make it this powerful game changer culturally.

AM: Yes, and you’re teaching them so much more than jazz. You’re teaching them collaboration and friendship that they otherwise wouldn’t get. And that’s—you’re saving the world through music. 

JS: I won’t take credit for that. We’re doing, you know, we’re doing our best, bit by bit.

AM: One person at a time. Bit by bit, bird by bird.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Jeremy Siskind on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Creating New Piano Music in the Digital Age
Dr. Andrea McAlister serves as Director of Digital Programming for the Frances Clark Center and a Senior Editor for Piano Magazine. Dr. McAlister is Professor of Piano Pedagogy at Oberlin College and a member of the Yamaha Master Educator Collective.
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Martha Hilley

Written By Martha Hilley, Artina McCain

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Martha Hilley, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Artina McCain. Want to learn more about Hilley? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Hilley on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Martha Hilley.

Artina McCain: We always like to end the interview with, “how does piano inspire you?” which I feel like you’ve already told us. But how do you feel like piano inspires you in this portion of your life?

Martha Hilley: Ah. [pause] Number one, I have never dreaded going into a classroom. The fact that I was given the opportunity to teach piano, the way I taught it in groups, changed my life. And the fact that I figured I would die at the University, just in my studio or classroom, someday. I wasn’t going to retire.

Well then, I became president of MTNA, and I knew that I couldn’t do a college job and MTNA at the same time [and]do the kind of job I wanted to do. So I retired. But I knew what I wanted to do was what I’m doing now because piano has shown me, not only does it inspire me to be the best teacher I can possibly be, but it inspires everybody that gets involved with it, if you allow them to be inspired. You know?

And group piano gives you the chance, as the teacher, to shut up. I know people think, “God, you talk all the time,” but I shut up every once in a while and let the students talk about the mistakes they’ve made or a particular way they practiced on something. So they have the opportunity of not only having a teacher, but [also] having peers in the same room with them that have the same problems that they have. They found a solution, so they talk about it, and it’s not coming from me all the time.

AM: Right. 

MH: And you’ve been on the website before that goes along with the classes. I’ve had students that come up to me and they say, “Hilley! I cannot get away from you! I go to the website, and I turn on a sound file, and there you are!” And I said, “Well, honey, I [will] go to the practice room with you, to try to talk through things, because I have an idea of the mistakes you might be making and things like that.” So, you know, I inspire them, maybe, but they inspire me more. And they inspire me because of what they do with the piano. So the piano is my life.

Now, I’m not a performer, you know. A stroke in 1993 when I was 49 took care of that from the standpoint of what it has done to my left hand. But that’s okay. I can still play chords and things like that. But piano will never leave my life. It just won’t, yeah. So I guess that’s [how I am] inspired.

AM: That is very [inspiring]. And you inspire us. You’ve inspired me. You always made me feel seen, even in places where other people didn’t see me. So I just wanted to tell you that. We love you, Hilley. 

MH: Oh, and the love is coming back. [laugh]

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Martha Hilley on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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I Don’t Get It
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Pete Jutras

Written By Pete Jutras, Jennifer Snow

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Pete Jutras, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Jennifer Snow. Want to learn more about Jutras? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Jutras on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Pete Jutras.

Jennifer Snow: How did [working for] the [Piano] Magazine inform you? Like that experience of expanded community, how did that change the way you perceived what you were going to do yourself, personally? All of a sudden, your exposure broadens dramatically.

Pete Jutras: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I’m not sure I ever thought about it that way. One of the principles that was always very important to me as editor was to present a real range of ideas. I never thought the [Piano] Magazine would be any good if it was Pete’s ideas. That’s not what a magazine should be. You know, it should be the world’s ideas. And so I tried very hard to, you know, even when there were things I might have raised my eyebrows at or said, “Well, I wouldn’t really teach it that way,” I still always wanted to run that content. There’s always value in any idea, and I think the dialectic process of comparing ideas is also really valuable. 

So I would say it just had a huge influence in cluing me into all the different things that were happening out there, all the different ways people were thinking and approaching teaching and studios. You know, new ideas, old ideas, different approaches. It was really valuable to have a front row seat for all of that and, you know, just see what the world was thinking.

JS: What a legacy you created also for yourself in that leadership role, because you influenced the entire field. You helped to advance and mentor a lot of people’s ideas forward because you took that attitude of ‘everybody’s voice needs to be heard.’ We need to build community, again, coming back to building community.

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How Do You Teach Polyrhythms?
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Catherine Rollin

Written By Catherine Rollin, Pamela Pike

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Catherine Rollin, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Pamela Pike. Want to learn more about Rollin? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Rollin on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Catherine Rollin
Catherine Rollin.

Pamela Pike: How do you feel your work is having an impact in the world? You are fortunate. You hear from teachers all the time. You hear about these positive stories. Are there any you might want to share with us?

Catherine Rollin: I can tell you a very recent experience. Now that I have an active website, I have all these hard copy books. I’m also doing some digital downloads. So it’s been very, very rewarding to just get orders—I mean, obviously it’s nice to get orders for your music. But even more than the order is getting letters from people around the world, because people around the world are mainly reaching out for getting digital, because it’s so hard and so expensive to mail things. 

One lady who had contacted me during the pandemic time [is] in Ukraine, and she had already used a lot of my music before the war started. She was sending me student performances and many times students were—I don’t think they had even the comfort or freedom to even meet in one place for [a] recital—playing in their own house and then sending them in. 

She sent me a lot of things, but the nicest thing was that she contacted me and she went on my website, and she got all my new music, all these digital downloads, which was really wonderful, and then she wrote [to] me. She said, “This is gonna be the next recital, but we’re giving a recital of your Museum Masterpieces, Books A and B. Would you be so kind to just say hello to each student? I’ll give you the names of the pieces they’re playing. [Could you] just say hello or some little message to the student?” 

So there were about 30 students performing. I felt embarrassed because I don’t think I pronounced their names very well, but that was very meaningful to me.

PP: And it must have been for the students because they now have a connection with a real, living composer.

CR: Yes. I can’t even tell you because I felt like things were really hard in the country, and I felt like, if this is giving the kids some spirit—my music—what can I say other than it just made me feel like I was doing what I hope music is always doing, but it seemed especially special under their kind of dire circumstances. They just started sending me, before I left for here, all the tapes that they had made because I gave it as a pre-message. And so I haven’t had a chance to listen to all of them. I only listened to one, but it was outstanding. 

PP: Well, that’s wonderful that that’s still happening. You know, those children need music in their lives now.

CR: Yeah, right. So in that regard, I mean, anytime I feel that I’ve reached somebody who loves a piece and that means that they love music, I always feel gratified. But that one was especially moving to know that they carried on into this recital, you know, and and all that in these circumstances. So it was great.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Catherine Rollin on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Catherine Rollin
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Sean Chen

Written By Sean Chen, Sara Ernst

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Sean Chen, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Sara Ernst. Want to learn more about Chen? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Chen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Sean Chen.
Sean Chen.

Sara Ernst: I want to ask about you as a teacher, you know, because that’s a different process when you have another person where you’re helping them to discover [how to express their ideas] and find that, and explore that. So how has that been for you as an instructor?

Sean Chen: It’s a very interesting experiment and experience for me, because I’m always trying to think, “Okay, am I doing the right approach for this student?” I have a default approach I like to do. You know, I’m very logical. I like to talk about form, talk about articulations, which reflects my teachers. It also depends on the kind of piece, because if it’s something— I think French pieces just draw the [Jerome] Lowenthal out from me. So I go into, like, more the spirit of music making and, you know, the imagination, but sometimes I have to remind myself to, you know, take a step back and be like, “Hey, is this working? Do I need to try a different approach for this student? I’m still relatively young and I think I still have a lot of room to grow in terms of being able to more efficiently pinpoint, like, “Oh, this student needs me to be maybe even more strict about not letting them get away with stuff.” Whereas some other students I know, “Okay, they’ll fix it next time.” I don’t like people being too pushy with me. I’m like, “I’ll get it, you know, I’ll work on it. I’ll get it. I remember what you say.” But not everyone’s like that. Some people want to be a little bit more strictly guided. 

SE: It makes me think back to your teacher who put the dates in your score. Right?

SC: Yeah! For example, I even, as a student, didn’t really write stuff in my score. Sometimes my teacher, Lowenthal, didn’t really write too much stuff. Matti [Raekellio] wrote a lot of stuff. There’s big circles and lines and big all caps.

SE: And then you open the book and just think fondly of your teacher when you see all those things.

SC: Yeah! So sometimes, again, I have to remember myself like, “Oh, I should go write it in their score because if they’re not writing it, I have to first be like, “Okay, are they going to remember it based on my experience of teaching them?” Because I know I don’t like to write stuff in my score, but maybe they need to. So it’s stuff like that. That’s very, very “psychology of teaching.” It’s not so much like are you a good pianist? It’s like, are you good at understanding people.

SE: Oh no it’s very true, right? It’s interesting how that can even change through the course of working with a student where their needs will change over time, right?

SC: Definitely, yeah. I try to channel my teacher when I [was] growing up, trying to get them interested about repertoire. You know, “Hey, have you heard this composer? Have you heard these pieces?” Trying to get them to broaden their horizons because I think at least from what I see where I’m teaching, a lot of students just want to play the standard repertoire. Even amongst the standard repertoire, a very limited version of the standard repertoire. I’m like, “Have you considered—do you know any Szymanowski?” “No, who’s that?” I don’t know nearly enough that I, you know, I think about post-modern stuff. I appreciated it when my teachers asked me, “Oh, have you heard this piece?” And so I try to do that too. Some of them take, well, to it. Some of them bring things in and I’m like, “Oh, you too! You actually chose this piece. Good! Whereas others just bring the same Beethoven sonatas in. I’m like, “Okay, all right, fine. We’ll work on that. That’s great.”

SE: And then plant some seeds and see where they go.

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More Than Just the Notes: An Interview with Sean Chen
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Midori Koga

Written By Midori Koga, Andrea Mcalister

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Midori Koga, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Andrea McAlister. Want to learn more about Koga? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Koga on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Midori Koga.
Midori Koga.

Andrea McAlister: How do you maintain—I’m not even going to say balance because I don’t know that we can say in a balance—how do you maintain that motivation, inspiration, that keeps that passion going in yourself so that you can model that for others?

Midori Koga: It’s a really great question, and I’d love to ask you, too. [laughs] One of my great privileges is playing with my trio. I’m with a soprano and a clarinetist, and the three of us started playing together about 12 years ago. We live in different cities. Kim lives in Texas, and Lindsay lives in North Carolina, and I live in Toronto. And we happened to come together. Each one of us kind of knew the other one, and then we came together and did a couple of concerts, and there was a synergy as people, as three mothers and three women, working women, and as musicians. 

We play, we commission new works.The piano/soprano/clarinet combination is a little unusual, so we have been writing grants and commissioning works, and working with kind of a family of living composers. We keep going back to them, and they’re dear friends. We keep going back to these composers, I think because they tell stories of life and joys and gratitude and sometimes life and death, and a lot of parenting.

One piece that we just commissioned, is by Ivette Herryman Rodriguez, and she’s a woman from Cuba and is living in the States. We just sat together in a brainstorming session, and she said, “I would love to write a piece of music that somehow conveys this in-between. My home is Cuba, and my home is in the United States, but one foot in each place sometimes makes me feel like I’m in another world. And sometimes that’s special, and sometimes it’s lonely.” She expressed it so beautifully, and it’s something that I kind of responded to. I’m in Canada, I lived in the US, and I’m of Japanese heritage, and sometimes I feel, “Where do I belong?” In experiences like that where we talk as a trio, [we talk] a lot about what is our voice as a trio? What is our voice individually as musicians, and what is the voice of the composer and telling that story, and who are our audiences? 

Every time my students have said that they like it when I go away. Oh, I should think about why they’re saying that, but they like it. Let me see what they mean. [laughs] So they like it when I go away, because when I come back, you know, I have stories that I can share, and also I’m reminded again about the importance it is, “I know you’re stressed out, right?” They’re really feeling the pressure of upcoming recitals. It’s coming close to the year end, and you know, [I try] to help them remember that there’s a reason why you’re here. There’s a kernel of that passion and love and joy and a connection to the music that you’re playing and that you’re playing music of composers who have stories to tell, even as long ago composers. But now they’re playing more and more living composers, and I’m so glad to see that really blooming in recent years.

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Women in Higher Education
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Dennis Alexander

Written By Dennis Alexander, Jennifer Snow

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Dennis Alexander, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Jennifer Snow. Want to learn more about Alexander? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Alexander on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Dennis Alexander, pianist and pedagogical composer
Dennis Alexander.

Jennifer Snow: You work a lot with young people. One of the things I find so wonderful about your music [is] first beauty and [to] make the piano always sound so big and gorgeous. That beauty of sound [is] just so important, making beautiful sounds [and] expressing through sound. But also you make pieces that are from a sequential learning perspective very achievable. So as a young student, you can achieve. You sound like a pianist. Yes, you don’t sound like you’re just, “I’m learning piano.” You’re like, “I can perform this piece.” Is that something that is sort of the way your mind works? Is it something you’re very purposeful about when you’re thinking about levels and how the hand sizes and how the patterns go?

Dennis Alexander: Absolutely. When I first started writing for Alfred, my keyboard editors, Gayle Kowalchyk and E. L. Lancaster, developed a very, very comprehensive listing of traits that needed to be within each level. I tried to adhere to that as much as possible. Writing at the elementary or late-elementary level is much more challenging for me as a composer than writing at the intermediate level, where you have so much more leeway and options to choose from for things to do. Finding ways to write elementary pieces that are interesting, fun, and creative pieces that kids want to practice—like to practice—is very, very challenging. 

And in fact, whenever I sometimes get asked by budding composers out there, they’ll ask if I could possibly look at some things they’ve written and give them advice. I find that for most of them, they want to turn in materials for me to look at that are more advanced. And I’ll ask them, “Could you please write a couple of elementary pieces that have certain restrictions? No sixteenth notes, no even dotted quarter followed by an eighth note rhythm that covers a fairly wide range of the instrument, and show me what you can write that’s fun and interesting and somewhat novel. I’m amazed at how hard that is for lots of younger composers to do. But if they ever want to get their foot in the door from a compositional standpoint, writing for educational companies, they need to be able to come up with interesting, exciting things at that elementary level. 

JS: Yeah, the accessible level.

DA: The accessible level because first of all it’s what publishers sell the most. And you know, the sales go down at higher levels. I think a lot of young composers who are interested in a career doing this don’t understand that yet. 

JS: I also think it’s connected to your deep passion for teaching and also teacher education. You came to composition as an outgrowth of your love and passion for playing piano, teaching piano, and helping others teach better. And therefore your awareness and understanding of who you’re writing for. That’s probably something that many young composers haven’t thought through. Actually, if I spend time with the group of people I’m writing for, I’ll begin to understand better how they would respond or how they learn. 

DA: Yeah, they have to know how a child thinks. They need to know what works for the young hand or the small hand. So yeah, when I’m writing music at those levels, I think very, very hard about what feels good in the hand for the smaller hand. Or I try and write pieces that are so interesting from either a harmonic or rhythmic or melodic standpoint, that the child will want to practice it and grow from it. And I love it. For me, the nicest compliment I can get from a teacher is for them to tell me, “Your music works so well for my kids because it fits their hands, and it stays within the level.” You know, that’s another important thing.

JS: And it sounds beautiful. 

DA: And it makes them sound better than they are.

JS: It makes them sound big.

DA: I love it whenever I hear things like that.

JS: I think we need a course on piano pedagogy for composers. Really! I mean, when you think about it all, you get asked that question so frequently, yeah. So here I am recruiting you to do something else. [laugh]

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An Interview with Dennis Alexander
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Annie Jeng

Written By Annie Jeng, Craig Sale

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Annie Jeng, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Craig Sale. Want to learn more about Jeng? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Jeng on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Annie Jeng - A Seat at the Piano
Annie Jeng.

Annie Jeng: When I started the project [A Seat at the Piano], it was difficult because I was born in America, I’m Asian American, but I didn’t know if I was the right person to be doing this work, which sounds weird.

Craig Sale: Yeah, tell me about that.

AJ: Within the music and piano community, I don’t think I’m necessarily a minority. There’s a lot of students and pianists who are Asian, and I knew that I wanted to lift up the voices of a lot of my BIPOC peers and friends. I just wanted to make sure that I was doing it thoughtfully, that I wasn’t mishandling a lot of information, and [that I was] presenting it in a way that was respectful. 

I remember, actually, I called up Leah Claiborne when I started doing all of this. I was like, “I’m working on this project. Do you think this is okay? Am I an okay person to be doing [it]?” She’s like, “Well, yeah, I think this is important work.” And I mean, I’m not gonna try and quote her because this was many, many years ago, but just to have that comfort [that] this work needs to be done and this work needs to be shared. I think the fact that I was even thinking about that, hopefully, that by itself, was showing that I really do care about this, and I want it to be done in the right way. 

CS: Yeah. With this subject and when you’re dealing with issues of diversity and trying to bring people in who haven’t been invited in, it’s important to recognize them, give them their own space in place. And it sounds like you didn’t want [to], you were afraid of perhaps intruding on that a bit.

AJ: Yeah.

CS: All I can say is, you know, all one can do is, first of all, embrace the cause because it’s that’s pure and good, but then seek help and advice. You did that when you reached out to Leah, and then you have these other people that joined you. I think that takes some of the pressure off when you have other voices around you. It’s an interesting situation to be in when you’re trying to do good, but you also don’t want to be offensive. 

AJ: Exactly. I think that what you just said is totally right. And it felt really good to not have to have all that pressure once I started to ask for advice and to ask for help and to build our team. Expanding the team was so wonderful because my team members also then brought in their perspectives and their thoughts and their expertise. Just within personalities, we were able to complement each other really well.

CS: And the end product is… Well, it’s not an end. It is continuing. 

AJ: Oh yeah, it’s forever going. [Laugh] I had someone today ask me, “Well, what about four-hand and duo music?” And I said, “Hopefully one day!”

CS: It’s right. When you’re uncovering a whole new world, it’s a whole new world, not just little pieces. There’s a lot to do there. But you know, I think that the result where you are now is just a tremendous asset for us, and it’s a big step forward in our profession, and it’s a wonderful resource.

AJ: Thank you, and it’s really inspiring to see that this is [a] lasting change. Yeah, we’ve gone over the fact that this is not a phase, this is here to stay, and it’s only going to get bigger and more impactful from here.

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Hidden Gems: Four Centuries of Piano Music by Women Composers
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Karen Walwyn

Written By Leah Claiborne, Karen Walwyn

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Karen Walwyn, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Leah Claiborne. Want to learn more about Walwyn? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Walwyn on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Karen Walwyn, pianist
Karen Walwyn.

Karen Walwyn: When I went to [the] University of Michigan, then I met Dr. Willis Patterson.

Leah Claiborne: So, yes. [Laugh] Karen and I, we would both agree Dr. Willis Patterson is our mentor.

KW: Yes.

LC: Biggest advocate, [the] person you call [and] sit down [with]. Just the most beautiful person, I believe, in our industry. For those who do not know Dr. Willis Patterson, could you give a quick synopsis of Dr. Patterson?

KW: I first met him actually because he did a Black Music Symposium in 1985. I was a master’s student still at University of Miami. When I got to go to the symposium, I got to go as a student participant. And while I was there, I actually played. The chair of the piano department heard me play, and he said, “You need to come here for your doctoral degree.” Moving forward, I did receive a full scholarship to enter the University of Michigan. Of course, you know, I was the accompanist for Our Own Thing Chorale with Dean Patterson. 

LC: I didn’t know that, wow. 

KW: Yeah! For years, we get in the car, ride over to the rehearsals, [and] chit chat. 

LC: In Jefferson Church. 

KW: Yeah. But one day he saw me in the hall, and he said, “Karen! Do you know any pieces by any African American composers?” And I wanted to slip under the floor because I felt so guilty. I feel like I’m supposed to have known. But none of my previous teachers were on that track because usually, the typical repertoire for competition is A, B and C, but not including African American literature. 

“No…?” He said, “Come here!” We went into his office, and he said, “Look around.” This entire wall, full of music and books and scores and records. [He] gave me the key so I [could] go in there and just study everything that was in his room. I spent years, I think, in his room. 

LC: That’s incredible. 

KW: Essentially, just going through stuff. And that’s when I said, “Why, I’ve got to do something here!” And then I came across Althea Waites’s album that had the Florence Price recording on it, and many other composers. So I said, “Okay, I’m going to do one of my doctoral lecture recitals on a composer.” I chose Adolphus Hailstork. And we got to have a lot of time interviewing him and learning his music. 

Of course, I was chosen to do his chamber work, a trio for piano, violin, and cello. The last movement was in 11/8. I [was] like, “Look, how am I supposed to count? It’s like an Allegro, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11.” And he said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” I said, “Why did you make this so hard anyway?” That’s how we clicked instantly. “No, it’s 12-12-123-12-12 // 12-12-123-12-12.” I was like, “Oh, okay! All right, I understand it.” We started developing a beautiful friendship. Once I completed my lecture recital, his piano sonata, which is hefty.

LC: Putting it lightly, yes.

KW: That was on one of my lecture recitals. Later on, after I finished my degree, I was lucky to become tenure-track inside the dance department, where I spent my two years accompanying ballet and [teaching] some of the music teaching subjects there. It was then that I won over $55,000 in grant money to record the two albums, Dark Fires.

LC: Beautiful.

KW: Of course, Adolphus Hailstork was on that, Alvin Singleton, Tania León, Ellis Marsalis, and David Baker. The list goes on. That’s all because Dean Patterson came out to me and said, “Come here!” [Laugh]

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This is What Diversity Sounds Like
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Tim Topham

Written By Tim Topham, Sara Ernst

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Tim Topham, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Sara Ernst. Want to learn more about Topham? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Topham on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Tim Topham, pianist and teacher
Tim Topham speaking at The Piano Conference: NCKP 2023.

Sara Ernst: What is inspiring to you about the kids today? Especially if you think [about] this holistic form of education, where you’re really trying to build a musician at the piano who’s really learning skills that they can take to a wide variety of contexts. What do you see from the kids that are learning in that way that makes you go, “Ah, yes, this is it”?

Tom Topham: I just like that kids aren’t letting us do boring stuff anymore. And this goes for classrooms as well. A classroom teacher can’t just teach the same curriculum every year like they may have done in the past. Be that good or bad. I mean, obviously it’s a good thing that they can’t do that anymore. The whole move towards more inquiry-based learning and giving students autonomy in what they’re doing—which we know from Self-Determination Theory—is a really powerful aspect of self motivation in education. The more that we can get them involved and help them achieve things that they want to do, the more that they’re going to have agency and power in the decision making and want to do those things. 

I like that kids these days want something different, want something more, and aren’t content with just the status quo or just, “Okay, teacher, tell me. I’ll just go through the standards. You know, we’ll start with Burgmüller, and then we’ll go to Clementi, and then we’ll go to some Beethoven.” I know for some teachers, that will be difficult, but I also hope that a lot of teachers will look at that—I won’t call it pushback, because it’s not necessarily pushback—but look at that questioning of students and see that they maybe want something different and more. Rather than go[ing], “I can’t teach you that.” or “what do I do?”, go, “All right, let’s try. Let’s see what we can do.” 

Teachers can get so much value from trying new things. For many years, for anything that I put out, I suggest, “Hey, I’ve had a great experience with this. Here’s something you can try, and here’s the reason why I believe it’s powerful in the pedagogical sense. Why don’t you give it a shot?” I just encourage teachers to try these new things because it’s fun, and it’s going to make them better teachers, and students are going to respond to it. 

Also these days, actually, students have always wanted to see their teachers as humans, as fallible humans. Back when we were at school, the schoolmaster was up on the raised platform, blackboards, and all that kind of stuff. It’s just not what we need or what students want anymore. And I think that’s good.

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What I’ve Learned from 150 Podcast Episodes… and Counting
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Spencer Myer

Written By Spencer Myer, Jennifer Snow

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Spencer Myer, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Jennifer Snow. Want to learn more about Myer? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Myer on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Spencer Myer, American pianist

Jennifer Snow: You’ve gone through all these amazing successes with competitions and started to understand yourself as an artist. That all starts to clue up for yourself. You’ve got a career, you’re performing, you’ve got your management and you’re a Steinway artist, and you’re on your way. Where’s the teaching pull? When does that start to come in, and how does that all come together for you?

Spencer Myer: It was always something I was interested in. I started teaching beginners when I was twelve. I had a paper route from age nine to twelve, and then I thought, “I could at least just advertise on my street for piano lessons and start teaching piano lessons. Why not make money doing music?” That was always something I very much enjoyed. I did that, not as actively, through college, and then it stopped in grad school. I lost all my connections to developing students, and I was more focused on playing through my graduate school. 

Then as the performing career started to develop and I would do various engagements, they would often come with a master class. So the bulk of my early higher-level teaching post grad school was master classes, which I always really enjoyed. 

I always found myself conducting a masterclass a little bit closer to a lesson than a public display. I just started to see that, certainly in particular, voicing things about developing technique, and refining technique and technical problems—solving things—came quite easily to me because, I think, I was never a prodigy. I had some natural technique, but I had to figure a lot of things out. Certainly, because a lot that I did naturally, I developed a lot of inherent tensions that I had to get rid of, and through repertoire exploration and just a lot of observation. 

Another thing I was going to mention about influences at Oberlin was the other piano faculty. I would observe their students playing. I would accompany a lot of their students on concerti, so I saw their teaching [and] so many of these different technical approaches. There’s Bob Shannon and Haewon Song who teach the Taubman technique. We had a couple Russian teachers there who have their own approach as well. I just gained a well-rounded sense of how to solve problems. And so I became, very early on in this masterclass trajectory, very addicted to those light bulb moments. Students, where you solve a technical problem and you make something easier for them, and all they want is to be able to communicate themselves more easily at the piano. It is just the best feeling. 

JS: Indeed. 

SM: Absolutely the best feeling.

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Engaging the Brain: Practice Tips from an Interview with Spencer Myer
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